Test ToneTest Tone

Test Tone vol. 66

Sounds on the Other Side of Extinction

Featuring: Polylis, Oncenth Trio, Mysteries of Love (Anthony Guerra + Noel Callan + Mark Sadgrove + Mark Anderson) and DJ Evil Penguin



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Cal Lyall and Yasufumi Suzuki Special Interview!! (JP only)

Artist information:

Polylis

Swinging, chaotic, melodic and complex, the big band brilliance of Polylis is a sure-fire way to melt the February frost dangling from your handlebars. With veteran Tokyo musicians Akihiko Ando (sax, effects from Kuruu Crew, Henrytennis), Yasuyuki Takahashi (trombone from Shibusashirazu, okapi), Kevin McHugh (keyboard, vocal from Capillary Action, loolowningen), Mitsuo Sakaguchi (keyboard, effects from Alan Smithee's MAD Universe, cojo), 448CO (bass from DaKaTz) and Daigo Wakasugi (drums from Stand Alone - 404), the band weaves its way through a boggling array of improvisations and compositions, trouncing genres with mad mercurial delivery. This is stay until the end music.
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Oncenth Trio

This is dangerous music! Innovative, daring and uncompromising, Oncenth Trio have always embodied the spirit of jazz, and they continue to expand the language into new dimensions.
An explosive group consisting of Taeko Kurita on piano, Keigo Iwami on double bass and Ryusaku 'Rutang' Ikezawa on drums, the most spectacular thing about this trio is their ability to balance their musicianship so that the interplay approaches delirious heights of intensity, while still maintaining the pinnacle of communication necessary for great music. Teetering on the edge of a dangerous precipice, this band meshes fresh, lyrical compositions with precarious and unhinged improvisation.
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Mysteries of Love

Formed by Anthony Guerra, Noel Callan, Mark Sadgrove and Mark Anderson, this band embodies the negative space of the sound we might first believe to have been rock and roll. Hypnotic rhythms meet mesmerizing waves of distortion mixed with other great caverns of manmade psychedelic sound.
Anthony Guerra (black pedal)
Mark Sadgrove (a binary datum)

DJ Evil Penguin

Master of disguises, Mexican top-hats, ambient rockabilly to minimal Hawaiian Kumulipo chants, the Evil Penguin poses the primordial question of evanescence against a backdrop of New Wave folk. Celebratory, subliminal, moment-to-moment. A Tasmanian treasure with a penchant for open spaces.

About Test Tone

A monthly experiment offering irregular art, music and performance in Tokyo.
The Test Tone series aims to offer a venue for diverse and challenging artists to bring their ideas to a larger community. As a free event open to the public, we hope to bypass the old economies in order to create new ones, while encouraging collaboration in all forms. A collage of media, sound and art in a space available to anyone off the street, the event is a bazaar of potential collisions, where passersby are treated to the unexpected.
For all of this, we found our home base at Super Deluxe, a unique space in Tokyo's midtown, providing a relaxed atmosphere within its modular interior. The event continues to be a celebration of off-kilter creativity in the city: from installation pieces to performance art and visual collaborations; from noise, electronica, ambient sounds and free rock to disorderly jazz and manipulated field recordings. To date, close to 500 artists have been a part of the event, together creating opportunities for unexpected improvisation, collaboration, and festival spirit.